Tears at the Opera
by TheMissingMask
Summary: What if Alessandra's gun in 'Now I Will Sing' had been real? Canon-divergent AU from season 3.


—

Rodrigo thought something might be wrong when Alessandra brutally wrenched his fingers in her iron grip. He _knew_ something was wrong when she pressed a very real knife against his throat just hard enough to draw blood, which spattered against his neck as she sliced through his hair. It was not until she pulled out the gun, however, that he finally understood just how wrong the situation had become.

But he kept conducting. Of course he did. He kept conducting through it all, because he would not ruin the music. He would never ruin the music. It was the reason he was here, the reason he woke up every day and what kept him up at night. He would sooner die than fail the music.

Even still, when he saw that gun his heart began to beat a staccato rhythm against his chest, out of time with the steady operatic score. The incongruence bothered him, but he kept going. Pressed another button with his foot, looked down to turn the page, looked up into the barrel of the gun.

Another voice stabbed in from his left, nearly drowned out by the resonant sound of the woman before him, but he heard it because it was his role to hear everything. He heard Hailey's shout barely a second before the loud crack of a gunshot. He faltered just slightly, losing himself in shock for a moment, but the singing continued, so his conducting continued.

The score was almost over, and however brilliant the music had been, he was relieved. His chest was suddenly constricted with unbearable pain and the balmy Italian evening was becoming bitterly cold. It took too much energy for him to not curl his shoulders in, to hunch over and bring a hand to the source of the pain as it spread across his chest.

His left arm no longer wanted to move, but it did. There were only a few bars remaining, and he would conduct to the end. The gun was placed on the stand before him, the barrel still pointing towards him in a silent threat. With a cruel and alluring smile, Alessandra stepped past him to face the audience as the performance entered its glorious final moments.

The last note hung in the air and echoed around them, becoming muffled to his left and too loud to his right. It seemed to drag on forever, but he knew it ended precisely when it was meant to. It was a spectacular finale to the concert. La Fiamma had sung beautifully, magnificently, and the crowd behind him erupted in cheers of joy. She smiled at them, bowed, blew kisses.

All this he saw in a progressively darkening periphery, and comprehended with an increasingly clouded mind. He took a single breath in, made an aborted movement to bring a hand to his chest, and crumpled to the floor.

—

Like a wave cast over the night, roaring cheers gave way to uneasy silence. Throughout the great crowds gathered in the square, there was a growing air of expectation. An unspoken presumption that this was another part of the show. That Rodrigo de Souza was demonstrating his characteristic flair for the dramatic. As seconds passed and the maestro didn't move, murmurs started to break out amidst the anticipation. People started question the scene before them. Had the maestro fainted, as he had at the end of that performance of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' the previous year?

Whatever they thought, no one was willing to believe, let alone vocalise the possibility, that the woman they had mere seconds before been bestowing their praise upon, their beloved La Fiamma, was capable of _that_.

Hailey didn't want to believe it, either. She might even have convinced herself with a lie of her own, were it not for the truth laid out in painful clarity before her.

Rodrigo on the ground, legs still half-elevated by the rostrum, laying almost motionless but for the shallow, gasping breaths visible in the erratic rise and fall of a deepening crimson chest. His wide, terrified eyes watched the singer now towering above him, basking in the praise showered upon her and the spell she had cast once more over the world.

Hailey, who had been pulled back from the stage by security after her initial attempt to get to the maestro, finally took advantage of the momentary shock to wrench herself free and run back on set. Within barely three strides, however, she was stopped dead by the cold dark eyes of La Fiamma. Smiling cruelly, the woman fixed Hailey with a mocking and bitter gaze that made the oboist's insides coil. Without looking away for a moment, the woman took one step to her right and slowly pressed her foot hard into the maestro's bleeding wound.

Rodrigo let out a pained cry that permeated the plaza, echoing off the stone walls, and instantly breaking Alessandra's spell.

The crowd roared their despair and outrage. Two security guards rushed forward to arrest the singer, while another group ushered the surging crowd to back away. Hailey threw herself past Alessandra and dropped to her knees beside Rodrigo, pressing both hands over the wound in a futile attempt to stop the bleeding, silently cursing herself for not paying attention during Lizzie's Grey's Anatomy obsession.

"Hai…Lai…" He breathed, wincing as she pushed harder against the wound, serving only to send more blood pooling about her fingers.

"Oh shit." She swallowed thickly, "It's ok. You're ok, maestro."

The blood just kept coming, the thick iron scent making her wretch.

"Hailai…sorry…I'm sorry…"

"Stop it! Stop talking like you're dying!" She blinked tears from her eyes, "You're going to-"

Strong hands suddenly grabbed her arms and pulled her back. Hailey fought them, frantically trying to break free from who she could only think was Alessandra, wanting to ensure her revenge was complete. But if this was Alessandra, she had suddenly developed a strong English accent and decidedly male voice.

"Calm down!" Thomas ordered in her left ear, "Let the medics do their job."

She stopped fighting and looked, breath still coming too fast and her heart beating too hard, seeing through blurred tears that there were indeed three men in green overalls gathered on the floor around Rodrigo. They barked to each other in quick Italian and fiddled with various bags and devices, leaning over the patient before suddenly jumping back in surprise.

"¡Hailai!" Rodrigo's voice was terrifyingly desperate as he struggled to get away from the medics,"¡Hailai! ¿dónde estás?"

"Si calmi, maestro."

"¡la necesito! ¡suéltame!"

He continued to fight the medics, but growing increasingly weak from the wound and drugs they had just managed to inject, his panicked Spanish words soon died to disturbing silence. Hailey could do nothing but watch as he was transferred to a stretcher and hurried from the square, leaving in his wake a dark pool of blood to stain the ancient venetian stone.

—


End file.
